PRESTOPUNDIT

ADMIT IT. You weren't focusing close attention on what John Kerry really said about himself the other night. All the while you were distracted by George Bush's childish face making. And while you were distracted you missed it. You missed John Kerry's big reveal when he really told you who he is and what his real passion about America is. And that moment came when John Kerry really became angry -- when he really felt something deep that reached right into his core as an American. And that precise moment was the moment when John Kerry passionately discussed the what the senator called the single-most serious threat to the national security of the United States. And this wasn't the killing by terrorists of American soldiers and civilians. It was . . . nuclear proliferation. But look more closely. What really made John Kerry angry, what really brought out the raw human passion of the man was not what others might be doing at this very moment to destroy America -- but what America was doing at the present moment to defend itself. If you watched the debate you saw it -- the fullest deepest passion from John Kerry during the whole course of the night's debate. And it came just at this moment when he said:

Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons.

That's right. America is the problem. America is to blame. America is guilty and John Kerry is white hot mad about it. You saw it, but you didn't pay attention. You were busy paying attention to the President's stupid behavior. But while you were looking at George Bush's face, John Kerry was telling you who he is. He's the same man who watched America's totalitarian enemy in Vietnam kill millions of innocent civilians in the most brutal manner -- and who came home to denounce America and every American soldier in Vietnam as the real war criminals and as the real enemy of humanity. The problem with nuclear proliferation? The one that makes John Kerry really angry? America and American arms development. Are you still missing the picture? Are you still interested in George Bush's face?

What you've got here is what they call in television John Kerry's "big reveal" -- a reveal exposing the raw passions of the man when you bore down to his core where genuine anger exists. And that man is the same man we've seen often before -- the John Kerry who was deeply passionate about America's guilt in Vietnam, America's guilt in Central America, and America's guilt in the nuclear arms race.

Do I need to spell it out for you?

It's right there in your face folks, so say it. At the core of John Kerry -- when touch something genuinely angry, true and real, something that really fires his soul -- is a deep running BLAME AMERICA FIRST anger. It was there exposed to the country and the world, staring you in the face. But you chose to look away, you chose to watch George Bush make junior high school faces. You chose not to be serious. Is that the President's fault? Perhaps. But you're a grown up. It's also your fault. You didn't have the simple guts to look this truth in the face and speak it out loud. Because if you did, you would have.

UPDATE: See also this and for background read Hugh Hewitt's "virtual symposium on John Kerry's return to his nuclear freeze roots." A reader email's Hugh:

It is absolutely astounding that the principal specific proposal Kerry advanced in response to the "greatest threat" question was one to constrain the strategic options of the United States! It is also noteworthy that this answer was one where Kerry showed the most emotion. He really is outraged that the United States would seek to acquire a weapon not possessed by other states.

(emphasis added). UPDATE: You can hear John Kerry's most passionate moment of the debate in this clip from Hugh Hewitt. Listen for the point where Kerry says the words highlighted in emphasis. These come just after the words blockquoted above.

We're telling other people you can't have nuclear weapons but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapons that we might even contemplate using. Not this president. I'm going to shut that program down.

Posted by Greg Ransom